The new High Commissioner has the opportunity to grasp the torch lit by his predecessors and fully embrace and defend an uncompromising stance for women’s equality - and his legacy will be judged on his commitment to doing so.

Jennifer Allsopp: Yakin, you were invited to Oxford to deliver the annual Barbara Harrell-Bond lecture at the Refugee Studies Centre. You stressed in your talk, and have repeatedly argued elsewhere, that violence against women is a human rights issue. Could you say something more about the relationship between violence against women and human rights?

The present report focuses broadly on developments in the United Nations regarding violence against women, its causes and consequences, over approximately 20 years. The objective is to provide a snapshot view of these developments, including the expanding conceptualization of the theme of violence against women, its causes and consequences. The analysis of continuing challenges is underpinned by the work of the mandate as identified through thematic reports, country missions and participation in conferences and meetings.

On Monday April 7th, the first day of the 47th Session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD47), YCSRR member Nur Hidayati Handayani presented the following oral statement on behalf of members of the Sexual and Reproductive Rights Youth Caucus at CPD47.

UNITED NATIONS – A UN General Assembly committee has agreed a landmark first resolution on women's rights defenders such as Malala Yousafzai, despite a hard fought campaign by an alliance including the Vatican to weaken the measure.

A Norwegian-led coalition, which has prepared the resolution for months, had to delete language that condemned "all forms of violence against women" to get the text passed by consensus late Wednesday, November 27.

The resolution for the protection of women human rights defenders is to be discussed in the next 24 hours. This is the first time a resolution on the situation and significance of women human rights defenders has been put on the table. So, we have some hours to make more noise about the importance of the resolution and name the States that are not co-sponsoring or the ones who are silent against the attacks to the spirit of the resolution. Also why not congratulate the ones that have and ask them why supporting the resolution is important!